Life, like a dawning, rosy day,

Stretched from her fair young feet away,

And beams from the just-risen sun

Beckoned and wooed and urged her on.

She met the light with happy eyes,

Fresh with the dews of Paradise,

And held her sweet hands out to grasp

The joys that crowded to her clasp,

Each a surprise, and all so dear:

How could we guess that night was near?

When the old go, we sadly say,

’Tis Nature’s own appointed way;

The ripe grain gathered in must be,

The ripe fruit from the laden tree,

The sear leaf quit the bare, brown bough;

God’s harvest-time; the sheaves among,

His angels raise the reaping-song,

And though we grieve, we would not stay

The shining sickles on their way.

We question wearily and vain

What never answer shall make plain:

“Can it be this the good Lord meant

Which frustrates his benign intent?

Why was she planted like a flower

In mortal sun and mortal shower,

And left to grow, and taught to bloom,

To gather beauty and perfume;

Why were we set to train and tend

If only for this bootless end?”

But age and youth,—what do they mean

Measured by the eternal scheme

Of God, and sifted out and laid

In his unerring scales and weighed?

How may we test their sense or worth,—

False accents of a long exile,—

Or know the angels do not smile,

Holding out truth’s immortal gauge,

To hear us prate of youth and age?

So needed here by every one,

Nor there; for heaven has need of none.

And yet, how can we tell or say?

Heaven is so far, so far away!

How do we know its blissful store

Is full and needeth nothing more?

It may be that some tiny space

Lacked just that little angel face,

Or the full sunshine missed one ray

Until our darling found the way.